[1] Writing about the first ascensionist's impression of the view from the summit of the Tour Ronde, one author quoted Douglas Freshfield in volume 6 of The Alpine Journal (1874), thus:[3] He wrote of this at the time that no other view had left upon his mind "a recollection of such overpowering magnificence".The Tour Ronde can be most easily reached within about 1.5 hours from the Torino Hut near Pointe Helbronner, where mountaineers spend the night before leaving, usually well before dawn, to ascend the summit early the next day.

[23] Previous techniques had used aerial photography and digital elevation modelling (DEM), but were deemed not to be sufficiently accurate to monitor change because of the vertical viewpoint and shadowing effects, plus the general coarse nature of their results.

This is comparable to an erosion rate across the entire measured area of the face of 8.4 mm per year – a figure significantly greater than those found in rock walls of high-altitude permafrost in Switzerland and Greenland.

The project concluded that the higher rock fall rate exhibited on the Tour Ronde and elsewhere in the Mont Blanc massif was linked to the degradation in permafrost which would have held the mountain together more effectively, but which now exposed it to greater weathering through the freeze-thaw cycle of water, with maximum occurrence during warm summers.

[23][25][26] In 2015 a huge rockfall on the Tour Ronde's east face was captured on film by climbers, demonstrating that instability in this mountain area remains at a significant level.